Interview: Wounded Cross (Written)

Games, Brrraaains & A Head-Banging Life bring you an interview with melodic heavy band, Wounded Cross. They return with their environmentally charged single ‘Monument Of Bones’, out on November 2nd, 2023. The single is a statement of intent and is a new beginning, a new style, a new sound, and a fresh take on whatever genre you choose to call it.

1. Hello! Thank you for taking the time to chat to us. First things first, tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got started.

I’m Tom and I’m the guitarist of Wounded Cross and I also write the music. I started playing guitar when I was 14 because my uncle had moved to Australia and left an acoustic guitar at the house. I wasn’t really very serious about it and just kinda played for fun until I watched the Woodstock performance of Jimi Hendrix Voodoo Child. I didn’t really know before that a guitar could even sound like that. I was so mesmerised by that performance that I got a cheap Fender Stratocaster copy as soon as possible and started practicing more and more seriously. Eventually I got into other people who shaped how I played significantly like Ritchie Blackmore, Yngwie Malmsteen, Randy Rhoads and Uli Jon Roth.

I kinda went through a phase or trying to be a Yngwie Malmsteen clone, I even had a cream white Stratocaster with scalloped frets but I realised that I wasn’t anywhere near as good as Yngwie for a start, and also that it’s much better to find my own style and identity on the instrument than just playing somebody else’s licks worse than they do.

2. Someone comes to you and asks you to sum up what kind of music you play – what do you tell them?

I’d say heavy and melodic. Regardless of what style the song is I always try to make it melodic even if it isn’t exactly always catchy, because the thing I personally love about music the most is a good melody. I do think our music spans across different genres of metal too though, borrowing things from classic metal, modern metal, metalcore, rock, doom and NWOBHM. I think that will be a bit more clear once the full album is out. I just love any kind of metal and rock really so end up stealing… or borrowing things that I like from the music I listen to subconsciously.

3. What’s currently going on in your camp? New releases? Tours? Etc.

We have our first single in 3 years coming out on November the 2nd. It’s not just the first song we have done with our new line up, but its also the song that is going to spearhead our upcoming album. We hope to release the album in 2024 but we don’t have a exact date yet.

4. What has been the most positive experience of making music to date for you?

Honestly, the writing process is the most fun thing for me. I love experimenting and coming up with new ideas, even if a lot of those ideas get scrapped. It just chills me out and relaxes me to sit there trying to come up with new material. I do like gigging and like listening to new bands and meeting new people too, but for me writing is my favourite thing. I’m kind of introverted so sometimes intense gigging can be a bit overwhelming for me.

5. Likewise, what has been some of the more challenging aspects and how have you overcome them?

Playing live for sure, I had terrible stage fright at first to the point that I felt physically sick before going on stage. I was really used to being a “bedroom guitarist” and to suddenly be playing live in front of actual people was really scary at first. I’m much better for that now, I kind of just go up there and do my thing and then let people take it as they like. I’ve also got better at recovering from the inevitable mistakes and mishaps that happen in a live setting, so that definitely helps too. I think if you’re apprehensive about playing live you just have to do it a bunch of times no matter how uncomfortable it is until it doesn’t faze you anymore. Ironically now I’m actually excited to play live again.

6. How do you handle the modern expectations of being in a band? Always online, having to put out content constantly, your success measured in likes and follows?

It’s difficult for me because I’m not really a fan of social media. I don’t have anything against it, it just isn’t for me. I kinda don’t like the idea of everybody knowing your business all the time and I’m quite a private person. Graham does a lot of the social media stuff.

As for likes and follows I just focus on enjoying what I’m doing and getting joy out of it that way rather than how many likes or views things get. I think that it can kill the joy of music if you focus on how many listens or views you get rather than just enjoying the process. I’d obviously love for people to listen to our music and enjoy it and I understand that social media is an important part of that but to me music is something I do because I love it, even if nobody listens to it.

7. What’s something that really ‘grinds your gears’ about the industry/business these days and what would you propose is done to combat it?

This is a tough one… I don’t really get too involved with that side of things. If there was something that I don’t like it’s “pay to play” gigs, but as a musician with a very small following it’s pretty obvious that I’d be biased there. I get the premise behind it and why it happens like that, I’m just not keen on it. I don’t really have any answers on how to combat that.

8. Speaking directly to listeners – what would you ask they do to help support your music?

It would just mean a lot to me if people gave the new single and eventually the album a chance. The best thing that someone could do to support us is to give what we’ve done a listen, even if you don’t buy the single/album and just stream it or get it from a dodgy website or something. I appreciate everyone who takes the time out to listen to our stuff, there’s a lot of stuff to listen to out there now with the Internet etc around.

9. Outside of the music, what’s do you do to relax?

I like video games, probably a bit too much. Me and Graham actually play retro games together with a few drinks when we hang out. I kick his ass on Street Fighter 2 regularly, I’m actually banned from playing as Chun Li. To be fair he’s much better than me at Micromachines though.

10. Where can people find you?

Hopefully playing live next year, for now plugging the single release and finishing up the rest of the work on the album. I hope that 2024 will be an exciting year for us.

Links

Bandcamp | Spotify | Facebook | Twitter | YouTube